The Office
Our office was featured in Unplggd! Thanks for the feature story, Sonia!
I began working on our studio the day after Sharon and I moved into it in 2004. We were both busy with work, so whatever I did couldn’t interfere with either of our workloads. In a sense, I had to work backwards--we moved in, plugged in the computers, and then began working on how the studio should be arranged. I worked in the evenings and on weekends so I wouldn’t interfere with business, and I’d tell Sharon several days before moving or disconnecting equipment so our work interruptions were minimized.
I’d spent many years working in different office environments, so I had several ideas about how best to use our new workspace. I’d always liked the openness of the design and architecture firms in which I’d worked, and I wanted to avoid the sterility of cubicles. But we had a very tight budget, so we were constantly searching Craigslist and Freecycle for used and free office equipment. Sharon and I found chairs, a conference table, all sorts of miscellaneous items, and a free color laser printer that only needed a good cleaning and a new fuser assembly.
I bought solid-core doors from a lumberyard, coated them with Varathane, and rested them atop a pair of file cabinets to form cheap, sturdy, simple desks. Sharon found the cabinets at Ikea, and we found the poster at the Art Deco fair in San Francisco. The models, mobile, and the “Utopia" letters were design projects. The office is finally finished, and we’re very happy with the results. You can see the before, during, and after Flickr set here.
